


lonely stale

by justwhatialwayswanted



Series: poetries [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: (again), Free Verse, Gen, Poetry, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:54:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26053801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justwhatialwayswanted/pseuds/justwhatialwayswanted
Summary: what do i need to break to break the chains on my ability to feeleveryone promised me there was more
Series: poetries [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891321
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	lonely stale

1.

i want to do something drastic.

how can i take another scream and another flood of tears and another fistfight and bury them so deep in my ribcage that all they can do is hammer on the bars? 

another peaceful night, a quiet night, a stifled night with a raincheck on an explosion

i lock that fire so far down that i lose it but i don't lose the way it grasped at me, pulled at my hair and my lungs

there are so many things around/about me that i could break, and there they sit whole because i do not know how to weather the disappointment

i cannot weather someone's disappointment in me

and fear numbs me when anger could have made me sharp, but i am always smothering myself too quickly

and driving over the speed limit at night is not exhilarating enough to be worth the risk

how tightly do i need to pull back my hair to feel awake?

if i bite into a ghost pepper will it be enough

2.

i want to want a soft life but i never feel truly comfortable unless i'm in pain. 

where will the twisted spines and hard floors bring me? why do i have to burn my tongue to taste? why do i feel lost in loose clothing? 

let my body struggle. my mind has had enough.

i never felt so happy as i did with gauze soaking up fresh blood in my mouth

3.

what i don't say is that long nails, long hair, don't have to be cut as often. 

short hair is low maintenance until you don't want to maintain it. 

short nails do not stay that way. 

long nails are long until they break.

and it always comes back to my hair. not profound. does it need to be? it's my hair. it cannot be separated from me

my scalp feels the memory of every time i have pulled at it but it is not the right kind of feeling.

4.

i can put infinite words into the world but they will never feel the same as murmuring about nothing to a friend in the middle of the night

nothing is the same as knowing i speak and others listen but when have i truly spoken what i need to say?

i could go through life not ever being more than this. the idea is almost violent—how could there not be more? 

everyone promised me there was more

i am in the mood to write poetry, which is to say, i am lonely

5.

i never feel so happy as i do when i know i am awake too late or too early, to do something i should not be doing

but what an insignificant way to break my own rules, and the only one i can stomach

a gray sky is worthless for me without thunder, without a fear of going outside

i want to throw something, a book, a punch, a wine glass that isn't mine, and i want to give them no choice but to notice my anger and my weariness and my gray sky

i am too even-keeled and my boat will sink before i tip over. there is a pinprick hole in the hull and do i need to capsize to send it to the surface

i taste bitter in the morning and unnaturally sweet at midnight and not enough in between

it takes more and more for me to notice a flavor

my voice is so trained that i cannot be raw for fear of hurting myself

so many glass trophies and i want to hear them shatter, to feel the fear as i avoid the flying shards and the relief when i am able to walk away

what do i need to break to break the chains on my ability to feel

6.

there are so many walls around me and i know them all by name but they never greet me

i hold everything back for one mythical moment when i can use it and leave myself wondering what comes next

eternity tastes like dryness and dust and i listen to songs that remind me i am alive. i don't notice them until they're over. nothing can happen before it is over. 

when it is over i will remind myself of the pain of heels and humidity and long drives and the world will return to me

7.

we used to have orchards and now the world seems young, not new, dusted with weariness, and a blazing sun, and i can still see the orchards if i go far enough away and wonder what nature's crime was, that we must hide it from our own eyes

the world, coated with asphalt and rubber and oil and dust, reminds me we never remade it for ourselves. flat roads and parched hills cry out for something new

8.

maybe if i was permitted room to feel i would do it more but feeling is not something that can be done in the constraints of my own body

even tears make contact with the outside world and yet i cannot summon them because i cannot implode anymore

everything around/about me has a way it can be destroyed but i don't want to clean it up. i have never wanted to sing this badly.

9.

saturday was a joyful day but rest is no longer joyful

there is supposed to be magic in the summertime

10.

i write facts phrased like fictions and hope i've made them look beautiful

i have never thought of myself as a poet but how could someone not have words screaming to be said? what is it to go through life without a story? how much time would i have if i knew, if i could know

what does it take to make me a story? to vanish into it and become a tale for others, slip away from what holds me here? this body is too limiting

i write and i think i don't want to be known for who i loved.

do my words matter if i can't spark emotion?

i never thought of inspiration as something violent.

my poetry is emotion stated as plainly as i can bear but it isn't enough

i can only ever write how i feel at the moment. i cannot write as a bandage, only bloodletting

11.

i am not supposed to break things. i am not supposed to be broken either. whether i am or not is irrelevant.

i am not so much brokenhearted as i am evaporated. there is nothing left to break. and yet it is so pervasive and i wish it would be whole

this is the most truth i have told in years, worded like a lie

12.

i can be so lucky and so empty all at once

everyone promised me there was more

13.

i write like i wish i could speak, or i write for my words to be spoken.

i have been unable to stop writing and i have been unable to start. 

rarely can i sit with a pen and paper and let the thoughts occur to me

i like the idea of full pages, of thoughts i can scrawl and leave behind to forget

nobody knows which of my notebooks are full except for me. 

must figurative language be non-literal? have i ever been literal a day in my life? i am trying

writing does not quiet my brain because my brain is not always loud. 

writing is only ever how i feel. i cannot change that

14.

nothing is ever quite as beautiful as it was when i first thought it

15.

i want to feel new. i do not want to do days or weeks or months over again but that is all i ever do

i crave a rebirth. let me emerge from ashes unrecognizable. it is not as much of a metaphor as it should be

everyone promised me there was more

they promised

**Author's Note:**

> if you'd asked me in early march what i would do if i was largely confined to my house for months, my answer would NOT be 'write poetry' but here we are. 
> 
> considering making these a series so people don't have to wade through my whole ao3 profile to find them?
> 
> anyway. thank you for taking a chance on an original work! my poetry blog is @justwhatialwayswanted-poetries if you're interested in more (new poems roughly every friday!)


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